East Village Student Housing and Dining

Baylor University's 2012 Vision addressed a desire to expand residential and recreational life into properties east of the current campus boundary. As the third residential community to be built in response, East Village seeks to embody the best qualities of Brooks Village, North Village, and the historic campus core.  It is home to 700 students and was designed around the tenets of the ACUHO-I 21st Century Project: Sustainability, Innovation, Flexibility, Community and Technology.  

Three primary design strategies drove East Village decisions—connections, shared programmatic spaces, and quality architectural context.  Within this framework, East Village provides places where students can: think, pray, and share a meal together.  Three residence halls, two of which house upper-division students, create an urban character along the street.  The U-shaped buildings are organized to create a series of semi-private courtyards and pedestrian connections, while the dining facility and chapel frame public park/plaza spaces.

The East Village Dining Commons addresses the university’s need to consolidate dining venues on the core campus, and to relieve pressure on existing dining venues. The facility visually interacts with its exterior spaces, drawing up to 500 diners. Exterior dining terraces are provided at the second floor on the south and west sides of the building. A retail component includes a convenience store and bakery. 

The East Village is a lively residential district with dining at its center, clearly linked to Baylor’s rich past but is mindful of a bright future. Its additional beds move the University closer to its goal of housing 50 percent of the student body on campus, and it establishes a vital and dynamic center for student interaction.

I recently met with a high-ability student in town from Louisiana, and I ate with her & her father in East Village, then took them on a tour of the Engineering LLC (she wants to study Engineering) - and they were totally blown away. Although she had a full tuition scholarship to LSU, her parents were totally sold on Baylor, and she called the next week to change her application to Single Choice. I know her East Village experience contributed to that decision.

Jessica King-Gereghty, Director, Admissions Counseling